* Talal Al-Sayah from Riyadh
The value of the Saudi government assets are amounted to 3464 billion riyals (3.46 trillion riyals) by the end of the first quarter of 2018, while the value of GDP were amounted to about 648 billion riyals.
According to the analysis of the unit of economic reports that was based on the data of the Saudi Arabian Monetary Agency (SAMA), the ratio of Saudi assets to GDP is about 7.534 per cent, about five times the rate (5.35 times.)
Saudi assets, valued at about 3.464 trillion riyals, are distributed at the end of the first quarter of 2018, according to SAMA estimates are divided to 4 main parts. The first is "Direct investment abroad" that accounts for about 9 per cent of total assets. Then, the "Portfolio investments" that account for about 17 per cent of total assets, and "other investments" that accounted for about 21 per cent of total assets.
The most recent one is the "Reserve assets", which accounted for 53 per cent of total assets.
In the same context, Standard & Poor's Financial Services Limited, referred to the fact that governments have a large volume of liquid assets that can be a major boost to sovereign credit ratings, as they can use these assets to pay off financial liabilities.
In its report, it has been mentioned that seven governments have "liquid" assets exceeding 100 per cent of GDP, and Saudi Arabia is in tenth place with 92 per cent.
The Agency adopted only liquid assets for governments in its report, Al-Eqtisadiah's report relied on full assets.
The agency considered that the liquid financial assets consist of government deposits in financial institutions and minority shares of the government in listed institutions whose shares are traded, pension fund balances with limited government-managed interest or social security funds held in bank deposits and widely traded financial instruments.
But the agency did not consider the central bank's reserves as part of government liquid assets.
* Economic Reports Unit
